Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The best lessons from Think and Grow Rich will help you on your path to becoming successful.

Lesson from Think and Grow Rich

To make money and grow rich might initially sound like a cliche, but this book doesn’t contain a hack that will help you gain a fortune overnight or without any effort. Instead, it contains valuable self-development lessons that will teach you how to stay on your own path, use each mistake to develop smarter strategies, and even how to think in order to get better results.

#1: Your thoughts are very important

Thoughts are important because they tell you about your inner processes and emotions. They are also very powerful as they are the foundation of your future actions or inactions. Every business idea that has materialized was initially only a thought that crossed someone’s mind. Based on that thought, the person built a business and took all the necessary steps to become successful.

At the same time, what you think and believe can either help you attain your goals or it can lead to your defeat. If you think you can become a better entrepreneur, you will start acting like one, and you will do all that is necessary to build the career you desire. Remember, it all starts with only a thought, what you do with it is only up to you.

#2: Desire leads to action

Having an idea or a thought is not enough to get you started; you also need desire. Think about it: How much do you actually want to achieve a certain goal? If your desire is low, chances are you will eventually give up along the way, or you might not even start doing the work in the first place. But if you want something badly enough, your ideas and thoughts will start being put into action.

You can look at this from any area of your life. Let’s say you really want to buy a house, but you can’t afford it now. But because you want it so badly, you will start your financial planning according to this new goal and thus take steps to eventually purchase your dream house.

#3: Have faith in your ideas and skills

You’ve probably had tons of great ideas during your life so far. You wanted to make them happen, but something stopped you inside. We all have doubts about our plans and goals, but what makes us work for them is faith and our capacity to overcome obstacles.

Self-suggestion is a powerful tool for building faith in yourself and your goals. You can write positive affirmations that you should repeat each day until your mind starts believing them. Affirmations follow the same repetitive action as mantras to attain a certain desired effect.

#4: Imagination brings forth creation

If you can imagine something, you can also bring it to life. Let’s say you want to gain more financial intelligence to grow rich and never stress about not having enough money. If you start to imagine the whole process, you will gain a lot of insight into how you can achieve it and boost your desire. You can then start planning for a better financial future and decide what steps to take.

#5: Don’t quit because of temporary defeat

If every businessman quit investing every time they had a stepback or lost some money on the stock market, they would never grow rich. To achieve your goals, you must deal with each obstacle that crosses your path and learn from each mistake. Take the time to reflect and start taking action until you get where you want to be.

#6: Continue to study and gain knowledge

The truth is you will never know everything. The way we evolve is through constant learning. Maybe your business is flourishing with the knowledge you have, but if you stop studying your field of business, you will eventually stagnate and maybe even lose what you have accomplished. Keep exercising your brain muscles and gain as much knowledge as possible in the fields that interest you. It will also help you improve your overall well-being.

#7: Take control over your life and become a decision-maker

The difference between procrastination and decision-making is what they lead to. If you procrastinate, you lose important time and delay your actions, which sometimes leads to quitting them. But if you make decisions and start acting on what you need to accomplish, you take control of your life. Things don’t just happen to you; you need to make decisions to reach the level you want to be at. Have a plan of action and start making all the necessary decisions to achieve your goal.